Around the time I started working at Massively-that-was, there was an article that I quite liked talking about how four high-profile MMO failures were not necessary. It was a product of its time, but the point was made that these games didn’t have to wind up in the state they were in. The mistakes that were made were not unexpected problems, but entirely predictable ones that anyone could have seen. Heck, some people did see them and pointed them out, but nothing was changed.

I think about that a lot when I think about other MMOs and online games because there are a lot of titles that, even if not entirely failed, are in states they never needed to be in. These stories are, at the very least, stories of some failures where the failure was not an inevitable end state, nor are they messes that had to be made. The writing was on the wall, the warnings were given, and someone just kept on keeping on and ignored all of the signs. And here we are.

So why the silence after an earlier tease for exactly this? Well, it may be because Nintendo seems to prefer to remain tight-lipped about these ports until they’re closer to release, or it may be that the current testing is more about seeing if it’s doable than specifically making it happen. Or it could just be willful obtrusiveness, or the anonymous sources are wrong. You get to decide!

Let us see if you are bright enough to crack this clue. Blizzard Entertainment sent out a tweet earlier this week in which it said “Sweet dreams” and showed a short six-second clip of Diablo’s head functioning as a light switch. A hand comes into view and turns on and off the light twice.

We’ll wait while you mull that over.

Yeah, it looks as though the studio could be working on Diablo III (or some other version of Diablo) for the Nintendo Switch. Then again, it might not. Polygon emailed the studio about it and got a reply from Blizzard saying, “We can assure you we’re not that clever. [It was] meant to be a fun community engagement piece. We have nothing to announce.”

So is Blizzard being honest or coy here? And do you see Diablo III kicking butt on the Switch? Let us know in the comments!

Diablo III’s 13th season is kicking off next week. If you’re hoping for something revolutionary and thrilling for lucky number 13, this… isn’t that. In fact, the dev blog previewing the season actually uses the word “traditional.” But hey, if you like comfortable predictability, you’ll be pleased as punch.

Participants in the seasonal run will pick up more pieces of the Conqueror’s set (helm and shoulders), new Imperius portraits, and a new teddy bear pet (covered in blood, thus reducing its cute factor). Folks without four stashes can work toward an extra, and currency toward class sets is also on order.

Age of Conan’s Saga of Zath server officially launched yesterday, drawing fresh attention back to the game that Funcom maintenance-moded by proxy last year but apparently just isn’t done with. Zath has a ruleset similar to the base PvE server’s, only you have to create a new toon to zip through a “saga quest,” which will give you special rewards that you can then take with you back to Crom when the time limit is up.

According to the comments on our articles so far, Age of Conan hasn’t got quite the traction RIFT (to say nothing of WoW) has with the expansion-progression server or vanilla server idea, but then, this isn’t exactly like those; it’s a little bit more like Diablo III’s seasonal servers, right down to keeping all your loot at the end, but it’s still something new for fans of the original Conan MMO. Future saga servers, Funcom has said, will come with ruleset tweaks.

Let’s take it to the polls for another Leaderboard: Will you be playing Age of Conan’s new server?

Alien, quiet, and weird — that’s the Anarchy Online soundtrack for you in a nutshell. For the first episode of 2018, the ever-contentious Battle Bards are back to quibble about, gush over, and nitpick the score to one of the older sci-fi MMOs on the market today.

Did you miss out on Diablo III’s reenactment of the original Diabloa while back? You’re in luck, then, because Blizzard is preparing the content for another go-around when the game hits its anniversary in January.

From January 1st through the 30th, players can revisit the Darkening of Tristram event, which contains the legendary cathedral dungeon from the original Diablo recreated inside Diablo III. Blizzard teased unique transmog gear, portraits, pets, and achievements that only can be obtained through this time-limited event.

“You’ll soon find yourself in a realm of glorious RetroVision™, where an all-too-familiar cathedral looms,” the studio teased. “Explore the depths and you’ll discover familiar enemies and iconic items, all brought to life in the Diablo III engine. Meanwhile, deep beneath the catacombs, the Dark Lord himself awaits any intrepid adventurer who dares to challenge him…”

Have a few extra bucks that Santa and his corporate elves haven’t pried from your wallet this month? Blizzard would like to tempt you to pick up one of its titles that are on sale from now through the beginning of January.

I do think that we, as a culture, have become disturbingly obsessed with selfies, but I will always make an exception for anyone who finds himself standing in front of an enormous gas giant.

“I wanted to share my screenshot for One Shots for the first time,” sent in Stormheim. “The screenshot is from Destiny 2. I don’t still have cool stuff and gear, but its kinda awesome to take a selfie with Jupiter behind you.”

If nothing else, Jupiter has the effect of making the subject look thin and light in comparison. Kind of like standing next to Jabba the Hutt or a YouTube content creator’s ego.

If you weren’t convinced that Blizzard defeated Bossland in its string of lawsuits already, you will be today. As The Nosy Gamer noticed, Bossland announced today that it’s ending sales for multiple hack, bot, and cheat programs that affected Blizzard games, including Honorbuddy (for World of Warcraft) and Hearthbuddy (for Hearthstone), though it looks as if Demonbuddy (Diablo III) will remain intact. Support for the discontinued cheats ends on December 31st.

The Bossland announcement is super classy, and by super classy, I mean not at all classy, as you might expect. The developers insist their paid cheat programs “provide no edge” and were intended to help time-starved players. They also claim Blizzard is winning only because of its supposed “decision to compromise the privacy of their players” by using checks that any studio that cares about cheating uses.

Last weekend, even Massively OP was obsessing over BlizzCon, and we thought it would be fun to poll the writers, including those who watched from the sideliness rather than diving into the liveblogging, on their assessments of the event, particularly as they pertain to the MMORPG industry. What were the highlights and lowpoints? Where do we stand on World of Warcraft’s new expansion and classic servers? Let’s dig in!

Good news for you, Diablo III fans! You’re now able to – wait, what? No, the good news is not a major patch. Or a minor patch. No, it’s not another new class. It’s not another expansion. Or, uh… lots of things. It’s not really any news for the game that’s been in the same state since the first (and probably only) expansion launched, and…

Let’s try this again. News for you, Diablo III fans! If you enjoy the game on console and are looking forward to making the game that much prettier on your Xbox One X, you can do that now! Yes, the upgraded console is out, it’s expensive, and the question becomes how good the game looks on the new console compared to the old one.

If that’s exactly the sort of good news you were hoping for, we are so glad. You can check out a video comparison of the game running on the new console (as well as the PlayStation 4 Pro) just below, too, in case you’re still up in the air about which console to get and need some comparison shots. We’ve also got a rundown of all our stories about enhanced graphics on the Xbox One X down there, too.

Turns out that Blizzard does have its eye on remastering both games, but it’s not ready yet. As Blizzard Senior Producer Peter Stilwell told PCGN, Warcraft III in particular needs a whole lot of balancing and a new map pool to satisfy tourney players.

And as for Diablo II? Hackers are the real threat.

“With Diablo [II] the big one is the botters and the spamming is out of control, [people asking] could we please fix that,” Stilwell admits. “Keep rolling seasons but maybe eventually be good enough at combating them that you see real names at the top of the leaderboard again.”